


DAII: Desires

by bioticbootyshaker



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-07
Updated: 2012-08-07
Packaged: 2017-11-11 15:38:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/480108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bioticbootyshaker/pseuds/bioticbootyshaker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For several weeks, Sebastian has been struggling with new and unexpected feelings towards Anders. He's tried to ignore them, while at the same time working hard to keep his feelings from the mage himself, and from the notice of his friends -- Fenris especially. After his drifting thoughts lead him to be an unreliable ally during battle, Sebastian decides to speak to Anders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	DAII: Desires

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cypheroftyr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cypheroftyr/gifts).



> Wrote this for [cypheroftyr](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cypheroftyr/pseuds/cypheroftyr) after I saw her mention how rare Sebastian/Anders is, and how much she wanted to see them. :) 
> 
> **Title:** Desires  
>  **Word Count:** 3123  
>  **Rating:** G  
>  **Fandom:** Dragon Age II  
>  **Pairing:** Sebastian/Anders  
>  **Disclaimer:** I hold no rights to this fandom, nor any of the characters, storylines, or universes therein. This was written purely for entertainment, and not for monetary gain. All rights belong to their respective owners. Dragon Age II (c) Bioware  & EA

**I** t couldn't be. 

Sebastian waited for the feeling to pass. He waited for sanity to return, for his mind to be whole and calm once more. Every day he begged the Maker silently to restore his wits, every night he prayed that he could be saved from the precipice he stood before; every night he was afforded no such blessing. 

The mage was in his veins, as hot and strong as Sebastian's own blood. 

Discretion was of the utmost importance, and Sebastian knew it. He never spoke with the mage, he never allowed them to be alone for more than a few minutes at a time. When out adventuring with Hawke, Sebastian appeared to be the same man he had always been; speaking hollow words of faith and resilience, trying to be that bit of comfort and encouragement in the background for his friends, struggling desperately to be strong for all of them.

Fenris wasn't fooled. Hawke might have been too preoccupied to notice the slight shift in Sebastian's mood and mannerism, but Fenris was not. He pulled Sebastian to the side one day as they moved through the Wounded Coast: Hawke moved ahead of them, whispering with Isabela, the both of them cackling together. 

"You've lost your senses," Fenris accused, releasing Sebastian's arm when he felt his grip had tightened to the point of causing pain. "I would have you regain them before you are the death of us all."

"No, I... I'm fine," Sebastian lied, wiping sweat from his forehead and looking anywhere but Fenris' eyes. "It is the heat I think. My hand is a little... unsteady."

"Unsteady," Fenris said. He spat on the sand beside Sebastian's boot. "You nearly cleaved my head in two with that last arrow. A few inches closer and my brains would be on the rocks. _Unsteady_."

“I’m sorry,” Sebastian said, looking down at Fenris’ bare feet. It was much easier to look there than into the elf’s eyes. “I have… been distracted.”

“What is more important than a band of raiders on our asses?” Fenris asked pointedly. He laid a hand on Sebastian’s shoulder, shaking brusquely until the prince looked him in the eye. “If it’s anything to do with the mages, we are doing our best to keep the situation under control.”

Fenris was the last person Sebastian wanted to speak with on the matter. When the name Anders was mentioned, Fenris became nothing more than a growling dog, without reason or sanity. Sebastian knew how Fenris had suffered beneath the hands of a mage, he knew only some of what the man had been put through as Danarius’ pet; and what he did know was enough to weigh down his heart and fill him with an indescribable ache.

 

Anders was not Danarius. Where Danarius had delighted in cruelty and subjugation, Anders only yearned for freedom: his own and every mage in Thedas.

Sebastian would sooner pierce his own brain with an arrow than tell Fenris who consumed his thoughts and set his heart to burning. No, the elf could never know; not if Sebastian wished to keep their friendship intact. 

“Yes,” Sebastian said, “I know that I shouldn’t worry, and yet---“

“All things work themselves out in the end,” Fenris said, giving Sebastian’s shoulder a companionable squeeze. “Have faith and take heart. I sound like you now.”

Sebastian laughed. 

That was what friendship meant, after all. It was more than spending time and sharing words, it was a sharing of self. He could see so much of himself in Fenris, and likewise, he could see so much of Fenris in himself. Then there was Anders, the man who walked around with rage tattooed as bright into his skin as Fenris’ lyrium brands. Still, there had been times -- walking together on this coast, huddled together in the Lowtown alleyways while Hawke attempted to liberate a stubborn person from their secrets – that Sebastian had seen much of himself reflected in Anders’ eyes.

He was a good man. Angry, morose, far too serious, but _good_. 

“Sebastian,” Fenris said, clicking his fingers in front of the prince’s face.

“Ah… yes?”

“Let us move on before Hawke and Isabela leave us behind,” Fenris said, “Or before they find a shady spot to… discuss strategy.”

***

Sebastian watched Anders tend to the people in his clinic. His touch was gentle, his voice tender. That such dichotomies could exist within one man did not surprise Sebastian. The complexities of the human heart never surprised him. Gentleness and compassion rose as quickly to the surface as rage and intolerance. 

Weeks before, Sebastian wouldn’t have taken the time to watch Anders. He wouldn’t have even tarried in Darktown for longer than was necessary without the mage to distract him. Now, though, Sebastian felt compelled to watch, to learn everything he could about the man who had so stolen his heart, mind and soul. 

The first thing Sebastian noticed was that when Anders was with a patient, he was _with_ them. He sat beside them and held their hand. He used those low, dulcet tones when speaking with them. He kept constant, steady eye contact the entire time. He seemed adamant in wanting the other person to know that they weren’t alone, that there was someone there to care for them. 

_If Fenris could see him now, if he could see how much warmth and love there is inside of him… He might know that Anders is nothing like the magisters_ , Sebastian thought. It was unlikely that Fenris would ever be swayed. He and Anders were strikingly similar, both of them committed to their causes, both of them stubborn and digging in their laurels. They were, essentially, two sides of the same coin.

And there stood Sebastian caught in the middle.

Anders finished with his last patient. He gave her a bowl full of strange liquid, that – judging by the poor woman’s face – was foul-tasting. Anders mopped the sweat from her forehead with a damp cloth, and sat by her side until she fell asleep. 

“Is that for pain?” Sebastian asked. He watched Anders for a sign of surprise, but the mage’s face remained neutral. Either it took more than that to get a little start out of him, or the man had known Sebastian had been watching. 

“No,” Anders said, “Just to put her to sleep.”

“Couldn’t you use some sort of spell?”

“Yes,” Anders answered, smirking at Sebastian. “I could. But I didn’t. Is there something you wanted?”

Anders had never been one to mince words. He went right for the heart of the matter. Such forthrightness could have been attributed to the Fade spirit he shared his body with, but Sebastian doubted it. There was always a glimmer in Anders’ eye when he demanded something, and it was a glimmer that was wholly his own. 

The question was loaded, even if Anders didn’t realize it. Sebastian struggled to find the words. He knew what he wanted to say. He had rehearsed for quite a while before coming to see Anders. Of course, none of that meant anything at the moment. Standing there with Anders’ amber eyes on him, Sebastian was rendered speechless. He opened his mouth, tried to speak, and closed his lips firmly. He looked away from Anders, fiddling with his belt, looking down at his boots. Sebastian prayed to the Maker to give him just an ounce of courage or at least to have the decency to let him find a hole to crawl into.

“Is this about that business with Ser Alrik?” Anders asked, “If so, don’t bother. The man was a monster, and he got what he deserved. Everything else…” Anders shrugged and wrung his hands in his lap. “Everything else worked out for the best.”

He was thinking of the girl he had nearly attacked. Anders had lost control, and he had nearly made an innocent girl suffer needlessly. Without Hawke’s intervention… only the Maker knew what might have happened in the caves.  
“No,” Sebastian said, “That is not--- I mean, that is to say… The man was a monster, I have no doubts of that.”

“Then what is it you wanted?” Anders asked. He sounded agitated, as though he believed Sebastian had come there only to mock him, or perhaps to treat him like some kind of social experiment. How far could the mage be pushed before good intentions failed him and he succumbed to the demon inside of him?

Sebastian had no intention of pushing Anders closer to that edge. 

“Perhaps to just talk with you?” 

Sebastian hadn’t meant it to be a question, but his voice rose slightly on the last word, as though he needed Anders’ permission before he spoke.

Anders gestured to the crate across from him. Sebastian took a seat, resting his elbows on his knees and leaning forward. This allowed him to keep his eyes on the floor, or at least on Anders’ waist. He couldn’t meet the mage’s eyes. He couldn’t let him see how much had changed between them; Sebastian couldn’t admit to him how badly he needed him.

“Talk then,” Anders said, “I’ve nothing to do right now, but things can get busy here in a hurry.”

Of course they could. Kirkwall was a veritable minefield. The Templars and mages were clashing, more viciously than ever before. It stood to reason that Anders’ Clinic would be full to bursting with so many people caught in the middle of their skirmishes. Hawke, despite his valiant efforts, was only a single man, incapable of stemming such a tidal wave of violence and animosity. Even with the help of his friends, the city remained in turmoil.

There were things he wanted to say, and things he absolutely _did not_ want to say. Yet when Sebastian finally managed to speak, what fell from his mouth was something definitely from the latter category.

“I wish sometimes that I’d never met you,” Sebastian said.

There was a flicker of hurt in Anders’ eyes, before he smiled and leaned back. “Many people share that sentiment. Would you care to be a little more specific? What have I done to you now?”

“You have wormed your way into a place where you have no right being.”

Anders considered this for a moment. “I’d appreciate you getting to the blighted point, Sebastian. I’ve gone nowhere that’s of any concern to you.”

“My heart is of plenty concern to me,” Sebastian said, heatedly. The silence that followed the words was the deepest, most uncomfortable silence Sebastian had ever suffered through. Peace was supposed to be found in silence, but there was none in that room, and there was none in Anders’ eyes.

He wanted to ask Anders to say something – to _beg him_ to say something, but his mouth refused to work. After what he had just said, it wasn’t surprising. Sebastian had no intention of digging himself deeper into a hole than he already was. He had laid his heart out for Anders, right at his feet, in only a handful of words. Now his tongue remained still, and his teeth clenched.

Anders stood and circled behind Sebastian. He expected to hear an exasperated sigh from the mage, perhaps a derisive chuckle that would bear as an anchor on his heart: instead he felt Anders’ hands on his shoulders and felt his breath against his ear. 

“This is some kind of trick, I assume,” Anders whispered, “Hawke or Varric put you up to this, most likely to make me look like a fool.”

Sebastian was tempted to agree with the mage, if only to spare himself some shame and embarrassment. That would do him no good, though. He would continue to think about Anders, to dream about him, to wonder how his skin felt under feathers and heavy cloth. He imagined it would be soft, after so many years spent in the Circle, but judging by Anders’ hands and the roughness of his face, he might have been wrong. 

“No,” Sebastian said. He didn’t like the weakness of his own voice, and he swallowed roughly. “No,” he tried again, with more strength, “Nothing moved me here but my own heart and resolve. No one knows that I’ve come here.”

Silence again. Sebastian couldn’t stand it. If Anders wanted to shout at him that would be better, at least then there would be no way Sebastian could misunderstand him. He wanted clarity and conciseness, he wanted to _know_ so that he could either move on from where he was, or see just what he and the mage could do together. 

“You… I don’t understand what you’re telling me. You, what? _Want_ me?”

It was more complicated than that. If Sebastian’s desires for Anders had been so base, he wouldn’t have even bothered the man with them. He might have been pledged to the Chantry and he might have devoted himself to the Maker, but he was still a man. Such desires were not uncommon, and were met with prayer and silence. Sexual desires could be tolerated, they could be recognized, pushed aside, and forgotten. 

What Sebastian desired from Anders was something entirely different.

Like most desires of the heart, it was not rooted in common sense. It was wild, passionate, and outside all logic. The feeling, burning in his chest like a firebrand, had a name; a small name that carried far too much weight. It had a small name that, when whispered into ear or sighed into throat, evoked the strongest and most _illogical_ responses. 

“No,” Sebastian said. “Well, yes, I suppose. I want you. There are… certain things I want, that I could never have, but---“

“You spend too much time with that Grand Cleric of yours,” Anders said. His breath was still on Sebastian’s ear, his voice low and caught somewhere between exasperated and smug. “She’s fond of talking in circles, isn’t she? Get to the _point_.”

The point: the _point_ was like a dagger in Sebastian’s heart. The silence he kept dug it deeper and twisted it. All the same, when he spoke that word, that small, terribly weighty word, would the dagger be released? Most likely it would only go deeper, inflicting a wound too terrible to ever be healed. 

There was no reason behind it. That was what kept Sebastian silent more than anything. There was no reason behind why he had fallen in love with the blasted mage. Anders represented everything that was wrong with the world, and everything that Sebastian would see set right. A mage, an _abomination_ , who stood in defiance of the Chantry and the Templars and who would sooner set Thedas to burn than submit. There was not an ounce of peace within Anders, not one single ounce. 

Yet his hands touched gently, and his voice comforted. His eyes and his smile and his boyish sense of humor that was glimpsed only briefly, but _seen_. Those things were as real as the Fade spirit inside of him. Those things were as real as his thirst for justice. Those were the things Sebastian thought of when he thought of Anders, and they were the very things that parted his lips and freed his tongue.

“I love you,” Sebastian said. 

No silence that time, but no words. Sebastian listened to Anders’ breath in his ear, before a hand wound into his hair and tipped his head back. He was forced, then, to listen to Anders’ quiet groans inside of his mouth. His hands weren’t soft, they were sandpaper on Sebastian’s jaw and throat. Anders’ tongue, however, was incredibly soft, flicking and curling inside of Sebastian’s mouth and sliding over his teeth. 

Anders was all things; soft and hard, strong and weak, dark and light. Sebastian wished he could have told him how beautiful he was, how terribly wonderful, but he couldn’t speak under Anders’ kiss. 

“Love me,” Anders panted, when he finally broke their kiss. Sebastian looked up at him dazedly, his hair slipping into his eyes, mussed from Anders’ touch. “You can’t. Maker, do you know how _stupid_ that sounds?”

“Yes,” Sebastian said.

There was the smile Sebastian saw so rarely. At first it was small, just at the corners of Anders’ mouth and then it spread, growing in strength and beauty. Sebastian reached up and circled his thumb over Anders’ lips, returning the smile, though a little weakly. 

“I’m an abomination,” Anders said.

“Yes,” Sebastian agreed.

“I will never stop fighting for the freedom of mages,” Anders continued, “Not even if that costs me my life. Not even if that means angering the Divine and plunging Thedas into darkness. There can be no freedom without blood and sacrifice.”

“Yes,” Sebastian said, with some hesitance. He knew Anders would never give up. He was too stubborn to give up, and too stubborn to die. At least with the latter Sebastian was afforded some comfort. 

“I’d as soon see myself made a martyr than made a Templar’s dog,” Anders said. He seemed to be goading Sebastian, or attempting to. He wanted Sebastian to be angry, to be defiant, to reveal himself to be part of some cruel joke. Sebastian only looked up at him, thumb still tucked against Anders’ bottom lip, and nodded. “Yes,” he said, “I know.”

“What would you do if the decision came down to saving me or saving your precious Chantry?” Anders asked. “Because I can tell you right now that decision _will_ come. So tell me what you’d protect Sebastian. Tell me how much you love me.”

He knew that decision was approaching, and faster than he’d ever anticipated. Even a few weeks earlier, Sebastian wouldn’t have hesitated. ‘The Chantry’, he would have said, ‘I will not desert my faith for a monster.’

What now? What happened now that he loved the monster?

“I would do my best to save both,” Sebastian said. His hand slipped down to Anders’ hip, cupping there gently. 

“You can’t,” Anders said. “You can’t save both. As long as the Chantry exists, every mage in Thedas will be abused. And as long as I exist, the Chantry will never be safe.”

“I would do my best to save both,” Sebastian repeated. He took Anders’ hand and led it to his mouth, pressing a kiss against his knuckles. The flesh under his lips was rough and dirty, marred by scars and freckles. Sebastian brushed his mouth over the skin, feeling gooseflesh rise against his lips.

“You’re a fool, Sebastian,” Anders said, not unkindly, “And sometimes I wish I’d never met you, either.”

“There’s no getting rid of me now,” Sebastian said, smiling against Anders’ skin. “Afraid you’ll have to put up with me for a while longer.”

“Oh,” Anders chuckled, “My rotten luck.”


End file.
